From Visions of Garleyville

 

Middle Town Birthday

 

 

"What is with this cold?" I asked, my teeth chattering even though Hank had turned the car heater on. His old dodge just didn't warm the air well enough and in Winter, I usually refused to drive with him unless I'd brought extra clothing.

 But this wasn't Winter, this was May, and no way should the temperature have dropped so low. I felt betrayed. We had planned this trip north for over a month, a trip to get drunk in Middletown for my birthday.

 "The weatherman said a freak shift brought in an artic wind," Hank said, his teeth chattering, too. Even with four layers of clothing, Hank didn't handle the cold well. He kept stepping harder on the gas to hurry us north, hoping to get to the bar before he froze to death.  I was wearing only a thin army jacket with a t‑shirt beneath, and knew I would be sick before the weekend was over. I put my hands where the heat should have been, but the waves of luke warm air hardly reduced their numbness. I might have found better results starting a campfire in the trunk.

 "Slow down, Hank," I said. "You'll get us killed driving this fast on a road this narrow."  "We'll freeze to death if I go any slower," Hank protested, though he eased up on the gas a little.  I understood his need to hurry, and not just because of the cold. I hated the length of time it took to travel up from New Jersey, with flat expanse of land on either side, so lonely and depressed, grey and crumbling farm houses looking haunted as we passed., and empty barn yards even the live stock had abandoned.

 I missed the city, the constant movement and the constant light. I liked the idea of waking up in the middle of the night to the rumble of a truck or the blare of a car horn. I liked hearing the snores of upstairs neighbor or the bark of his dog, telling me that life went on around me. I knew something must live in these dreary hills. But in the twilight, under the illumination of the dodge's dim headlights, I could pick out nothing, except the rare flash of frightened eyes, and they hardly helped to cure my feelings of isolation.

 Hank didn't say much either, which made the trip seem that much longer. He looked scared, both hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel, as if he expected another car to cut in front of us the way one had a year earlier, when my nose hit the dashboard and he broke his neck. But even in the dim light, he looks different, the usual girl‑hunting glint absent ‑‑ though I know I'll have to yank him away from promising females once we arrive, and know he won't like my wanting just to get drunk, or even just sit with a beer and talk, about where we've been, and where we're going, and what we can do to get there. Not to Middletown. But to Middle age. I turned 22 today, but I felt like an old man, and wanted to know why, and I didn't need Hank's lust for a girl to get in the way.

 "Ut oh," Hank said, glancing up in the rear view mirror. "We got company."  "What is it?" I said and struggled to shift myself straighter in the seat, half sliding down to the floor the way I always had as a kid.

 "There's a police car behind us." Hank said.

 "Oh Christ!" I said, twisting around to look, but could only see the high beams of the car behind us, closing in on us like a shark. "I told you to slow down. The last thing I need to tonight is a hassle from the cops."

 "I'm not carrying anything," Hank said. "Are you?"

 "No," I said. "But you forget I'm on probation. I'm not supposed to leave the state. The cops check my identification, I'll wind up sleeping in a jail cell."  Hank laughed. "It's your birthday, Kenny, no cop's going to put you in jail on your birthday. And you do have to blow off steam. You've been so grumpy lately, always snipping at me during work and telling you have to go home early when we go out."

 "You know why I'm moody," Kenny said. "And besides, cops and probation officers have no sense of humor. If they catch me out of the state, I will go to jail ‑‑ maybe for years."  "All right, I'll slow down," Hank said, and eased his foot off the accelerator. The cop car eased passed, the officer glancing over, green glow of the dashboard light reflected off his eye glasses. Under the brim of the campaign style hat he looked evil indeed. But he made no sign that Hank should pull over and after a moment, his tail light faded into the darkness ahead of them.  Kenny sighed, drawing more laugh from Hank.

 "See! You're worrying was all for nothing," he said.

 "So you say," Kenny mumbled, and shivered again. "All this seems crazy ‑‑ especially the cold. We should have found a bar nearer to home."

 "You say that now," Hank said. "But once we get to where we're going and sit down in those high backed chair with nice drinks in front of us and even nicer girls to talk with, you'll feel different."

 "No girls tonight, Hank," Kenny said.

 "What?"

 "I'm not in the mood."

 "You don't want to get laid?"

 "I don't want the complications that come trying to woo a girl into bed. I just want to sit down and drink and talk."

 "Talk? About what?"

 "About where we've been and where we're going."

 "That's nuts," Hank said. "You used to like girls well enough when we worked in the theater."  "I still like girls, Hank. I just don't want to socialize. Besides, the theater was another era, a much more simple time. We didn't have to invent pickup lines, we didn't have play all kinds of crazy games. I miss those days."

 "Not me," Hank said. "We were stupid then, always wandering around, bumping into things, getting lost in New York. We made fools of ourselves."

 "Yes, we did, and still are I suspect, though we think ourselves so much wiser now, regular Casanovas, traveling from disco to pick up bar trying to impress every woman we see. A few years from now, we'll look back on what we're doing now and see it as a lot worse than just getting lost."

 Hank grunted, then pushed down on the gas again. Kenny stared out at the bleak landscape that revealed itself in the splash from the headlights, fence posts, empty farms, but no farm animals, and no windmills. After the theater, Kenny and Hank did do foolish things ‑‑ Hank determined to pin down his place in the 1960s like Don Quote seeking his place in chivalry, neither really part of the movement, though both thought they were, and Kenny, playing Sancho Panza's part for Hank, following along, allowing Hank to get them both in trouble, searching out the secrets from the mists of their modern Avalon, Greenwich Village, in the end, coming away with a tangle of feelings, none of them adding up to anything remotely making sense ‑‑ and yet, leaving Kenny with the idea that he was part of something greater than either of them suspected, something passing before their eyes, something they needed to grasp before it escaped ‑‑ and in the end, failing.

 If he closed his eyes, he could see the Lincoln Tunnel as they passed beneath it, still hear the echo of their footsteps as they hurried through the Port Authority to catch the subway, still feel the press of New York City smog on his chest as he emerged on the street, still smell the pot and increase, still sense the swagger as he harmonized folk songs as they walked the streets, Jesus‑freaks, bikers, hippies, winos, tourists, prostitutes and cops glancing up, startled by this sudden rush of fresh air coming at them from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.  Now, all that was gone, and Hank now sought some new experience north and west of New York City, seeking different kinds of thrills among the college crowd in odd places like Middletown.

 

Around them, the farm land vanished and cropping of small houses hinted of their approach to the city, nearly empty condo developments still mostly new though with ply board across their windows and for sale signs on their lawns, the hopes and dreams of real estate magnet dashed by the closing of the Playboy club and New Jersey’s refusal to allow gambling anywhere else but Atlantic City. Even the college at Middletown could not attract the right kind of people or the proper investment. Few were yet willing to make the long commute between this neck of the woods and New York City, though Kenny’s uncles had told him a day would come when people would commute from as far away as Pennsylvania, seeking a reasonable quality of life while still maintaining their Wall Street incomes.

 American flags flapped from flagpoles on the porches of the older houses, and Nixon reelection signs sat posted on their lawns, left over from the previous November, some growing yellow in the windows of the stores the car passed. But even the more impressive houses, the buildings with plantation-style columns and two story windows seemed shabby and spent, in need of paint and repair, with drive ways cracked and walls crumbling, and as the car neared the center of town, its tires rumbled over potholes most towns would have already fixed.

 Seeing the place reminded Kenny of the ghost towns he’d once passed through out West, during those years when he was hunted by the police, dismal, dying places from which the children fled when old enough and in which those too old to flee, waited for burial. Yet, as the car passed the porches, most the rocking chairs remained unoccupied, the old driven in doors by the unexpected drop in temperature. Only in the center of town did Kenny find life, hot rods and pick up truck, crowding the curb sides as if part of mid-day shopping. Clumps of college students moved along the sidewalk from bar to bar, laughing loudly, drawing the stares of the drunken groups of rednecks who’d come into town to get laid. Wolf whistles echoed off the stone faces of the bank buildings, and when the women in short shirts and tight blouse paid no attention to these, the rednecks resorted to obscenities.

 AI don’t believe we came all this way for this,@ Kenny said. AIf we’d wanted to mess with rednecks we could have stopped at Sussex or Hamburg.@

 AWe wouldn’t have found women like these in Sussex,@ Hank said, who stared as feverishly at the women as the rednecks did, his hands so tight on the steering wheel, he almost didn’t turn with the curve, with a last minute shout from Kenny keeping the car from side swiping a bus.

 AWill you please watch the road!@ Kenny snapped.

 AI’m sorry!@ Hank said. AMaybe we should park.@

 AYeah,@ Kenny mumbled, already envisioning a night of distractions like this, of pulling Hank away from every woman to pass him the way he had back in the good old days in New York -- though in 1968, the habit had seemed much less decadent. Now, Hank’s interest seemed to border on disgusting, as if he and turned into a gawking dirty old man at age 22, leering at and slavering over every young woman he saw, attracted as much by their vulnerability as their gender -- most of these women straight out of some relatively protected community upstate.

 A sneeze erupted from Kenny as Hank pulled the Dodge into a cramped space just off the main drag.

 ASay, pal,@ Hank said. AYou sound like you’re coming down with something.@

 AI damned well ought to be with this goddamn weather,@ Kenny mumbled, though the illness he felt went deeper than a cold. A year after Louise’s leaving, and he still ached to the bones. He couldn’t explain it exactly. She had left a rent in him that needed longer than a year to heal. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he seemed to drift, like some poor little cork let loose on a vast river, coming from nowhere, going nowhere, praying for some situation to snag him.

 The cop car -- the same or another with a similar looking driver -- coasted down the street before either Kenny or Hank could climb out of the Dodge, the cop glancing at the car briefly, before being distracted by yet more obscenities from the drunken men across the street, men who with their gazes still locked onto the college girls, missed the arrival of the police. The tires screeched as the cop make a hasty u-turn, the car’s blue and red lights jumping to live, flashing across the startled faces of the drunken men. None moved, and within a few seconds, the cop was out of his car and pushing them against the wall, as a siren wailed and another cop car rushed to the scene with yet more cops leaping out its two doors. An argument insured between cops and drunks, and a moment later, the cops propelled some of the drunks into the back of the two waiting cars.

 AWell?@ Hank asked, apparently oblivious to the action. AAre we going to sit here all night?@

 AWhy don’t we wait for all that to stop,@ Kenny said.

 ACome on, Kenny. We’re wasting time. The police aren’t interested in you. They have those assholes.@

 Hank didn’t wait for Kenny’s answer, but climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him, leaving Kenny to sit and look obvious or join him outside. Kenny reluctantly climbed out onto the curb, then even more reluctantly, followed behind Hank as he headed straight across the street towards the cops. One of the police officers turns, eyes Hank, but Hank only smiles.

 AGood evening, officer,@ he said and passes on towards the corner and the first of the man Middletown bars.

 The officer frowns, but Hank and Kenny move passed before he can say anything, and after a moment, one of the other drunks draws his attention. But Kenny’s hands shake, the way they shook that November night in 1969 when he had snuck down to his uncle’s safe and spun open stolen combination, the way they shook when he reached in and pulled out the metal box full of cash, the way they shook when he pushed bundles of bills in his pockets and then fled. Then and now, Kenny hated being hunted, and was never so glad as when he’d turned himself in, relieving himself of the fear that followed more certainly than the police ever did, the watching and waiting, the expectation of a bust that never came.

 But now, with his hair cut shorter, he seemed less the criminal type. Cops saw him here and in New Jersey as just one more college kid out for fun, not a pardoned criminal violating the terms of his probation. He and Hank had skipped out of the state before, Friday binges in places like Greenwood Lake, where they drank and sought girls, knowing they could skip easily over the New Jersey border. Maybe he should have learned not to tempt fate when they’d nearly killed themselves in car crash on the way to those bars, slamming into the side of some idiot who’d picked a blind spot in the road to turn around, two underage girls sitting beside Kenny and Hank as cars hit, moaning later, when the ambulance arrived, and the police -- the crash site 20 yards on the right side of the New Jersey boundary. But here, they had a half hour’s drive to get to New Jersey, and as he walked, the more Kenny felt trapped, as if he couldn’t easily get back short of hitching a ride on a flying saucer.

 AHere’s the  place,@ Hank said, stopping outside the door of a small bar. The tinted windows made it difficult for Kenny to peer inside, though he could see the fire place at the rear, flames flickering madly with suggestions of warmth.

 Hank did not wait, but shoved his way into the bar, with Kenny hurrying in behind him, the sour smell of hops, cigarette smoke and perfume curling up around him as he entered.

 Patrons cluttered the bar and some of the tables, but the room wasn’t as packed as Kenny had imagined it, not where near as bad as the meat-market pickup joints Hank usually picked, where men and women shopped for quick sex. In fact, the bar had a little texture, wood paneled walls with portraits of mountains hung between the eclectic flickering flame lights, an imitation of the real flames that roared in the hearth. Hank found a table near the fire and sat, moving Kenny towards the closer seat.

 AThis isn’t bad,@ Kenny admitted as he sat, as the warmth rolled over him, defrosting those parts of him that had become frozen during the ride, his toes and fingers first, then his legs and arms. After a drink, Kenny felt light-headed and cheery, and his own laughing sounded as innocent and foolish as it had during the days of their wandering Greenwich Village.

 Garrick used to talk about a small pub on the West side, a place along Hudson Avenue where he used to take a girl named Geri to contemplate the problems of their lives, finding solace in the endless bottom of their glass, finding mercy in the warm flames of a fire like this. Kenny had always envied Garrick that peace of mind, his ability to settle for what life had given him, even when that seemed bad, the pain of his breakup, the disappointment at his lack of career. Kenny had even asked Garrick once to join them, but the large man had only shaken his head.

 AIt won’t due dragging you there,@ he said. AYou’d just get in the way.@

 And yet at this moment, after all the bullshit of driving north to this utterly contemptible college town, Kenny felt as if he had finally arrived, and wasn’t in the way. The heat and the low light, the warmth and Hank’s murmuring seemed to help loosen parts of Kenny that the years had tightened. After years on the road running away from his past, Kenny had not settled everything by turning himself into the police. Certainly nothing inside his head. He still feared shadows. He still worried over the hand that might settle on his shoulder and drag him back to jail, not just because he occasionally skipped over the border, but because he had kept things out of his confession that others would condemn him for. He never told the judge how he’d used phony names while on the run, or the full extent of his drug use, or how he had tangled with some strange characters out west, people like the Hell’s Angels and the Manson Family, associations that would have caused even the most liberal court to revoke his probation. But now, a weary nostalgia came over him, and in a vague way he missed his life on the road -- though he would never seek to repeat it now that he knew what to expect. And he felt just a little proud of his accomplishments, his there-and-back-again story that none of his companions could match, he, the criminal wanted in 50 states, he the man who had visited all the Western sites of the hip movement, from Hollywood Boulevard to Portland, Oregon, visiting San Francisco and Big Sur along the way. He had fled before the police in Las Vegas and Phoenix. He had escaped from Denver and Albuquerque, and survived. And seated now before the fire, he felt like an old veteran returned from war.

 That’s when he noticed Hank’s attention wandering, and the nearly plastic expression Hank adopted when he was about to pounce on a girl, the unbearably disgusting look of a lounge lizard seeking a victim. Only by twisting around in his seat did Kenny get a glimpse of Hank’s target, three young college-aged women just then coming into the bar from the street, shedding their coats in a slow strip tease that drew Hank up in his seat.

 AWhat the hell do you think you’re doing?@ Kenny asked, grabbing Hank’s arm before the man could rise.

 AWhat does it look like I’m doing?@ Hank said. AI’m going over there to talk to those girls.@

 ABut I asked you to skip that stuff for one night.@

 AYou mean you were serious about not trying to get laid?@ Hank asked.

 AYes.@

 AWhy?@

 ABecause I’m not in the mood.@

 AListen, Kenny,@ Hank said, leaning close so that his beard nearly tickled Kenny’s cheek. AI happen to know for a fact that you haven’t had sex in a long, long time. Not since your wife left you. And you’re not going to try and tell me you don’t want to get into the pants of one of those girls.@

 Kenny glanced over. All three girls had their attributes, an almost unreal sense of beauty Kenny sometimes caught in the faces of models on the magazines at the supermarket check out, plastic images painted on to attract men. None fit the image of the woman he had in mind.

 AI am serious, Hank,@ Kenny said. AI don’t want to get involved in some huge social scene. I just want to sit here and talk.@

 ATalk? That’s crazy. I didn’t come all this way just to talk to you.@

 AFine,@ Kenny mumbled. AI’ll sit here and talk to myself then. You go over if you want.@

 AThank you,@ Hank said, clearly angry. AI will.@

 And just like that, Hank stood and strode towards the women, adjusting his jacket the way he had countless time in the East Side pickup joints or the other bars in Southern New Jersey where he sometimes sang, drawing down a mask over his face that was so artificial Kenny didn’t know this part of him. This was the same mask Hank wore when wandering through the go-go bars of Bloomfield and Newark, dragging Kenny behind him like a limp rag, gaining satisfaction from watching nearly naked women dance, satisfaction Kenny did not, as if Hank could no longer stand contact with real things, seeking other plastic people and plastic situations.

 Kenny didn’t hear Hank’s come on to the women, but he heard the giggled reply, two out of the three women finding something funny in Hank’s opening gambit, funny enough to invite him to sit. Hank lifted his hand, and for a moment, Kenny thought he was waving to him, then noticed a waitress hurrying in the direction of that table. Kenny sank deeper into the chair, and into the lazy warmth produced by the fire. He closed his eyes, and listened to the sounds around him, a fm radio playing Rolling Stones as the voices of the crowd grew more vehement with every drink. Hank’s voice rose and fell, though the words did not reach Kenny. The girls giggled. The warmth must have made Kenny doze, for in what seemed like only a moment, someone -- it turned out to be Hank -- shook him.

 AI want to introduce you to Mary and Peg,@ Hank said, standing to one side of Kenny’s chair with a girl under each arm. Where the third girl went, Kenny couldn’t see, but these two giggling girls posed a big enough concern, one obviously set aside for Kenny, while Hank planned wonderful things of his own with the other. Without saying so in so many words, Hank was asking Kenny to choose which one he wanted, determined to get on with his mission of sex before the night passed and the girls had to leave.

 Only Kenny didn’t want to pick and stared hard at Hank, hoping he could press his message through the plastic flesh and convince the man to take both girls away, to his car, to the moon for all Kenny cared. But stare as hard as he wanted, Kenny couldn’t make Hank meet his eye.

 ASit down, girls,@ Hank said, then motioned for the waitress to bring more drinks, glancing in stealth at Kenny as if to read from his face which girl he preferred. AWhat are you drinking, Kenny?@

 AI’m not,@ Kenny said, glancing at his empty glass.

 AYou have to drink or they ask you to leave.@

 AI’m already tired. Another drink will put me asleep.@

 ADrink hard alcohol,@ one of the girls, who was Peg, said. AThat wakes you up for a while. I know. We pull that trick all the time. Only we don’t always know when to stop, and we keep on drinking to wake up, and then we find that we’ve had so many that we can’t stand.@

 AOh, poor girl,@ Hank said with a twinkle of lust in his eyes. AI’ll bet you’re just a bundle of joy when you’re drunk.@

 AJust a bundle,@ Peg said and grinned back.

 Kenny stood up sharply. AI think fresh air will do more for me than another drink,@ he said, and marched towards the door over the protests of Hank, who tried and failed to pull him back. And failing that, hurried after him, stopping him at the door.

 AWhat the hell do you think you’re doing?@ Hank asked in a sharp whisper, staring over Kenny’s shoulder to make sure no one advanced on the table where the girls sat.

 AGoing outside like I said.@

 AYou’re blowing this for both of us, Kenny, you do realize that?@

 This last, Hank shouted, drawing stares from some of the other patrons, and an implied threat from the bartender who presumed the worst, and shouted for them to take their argument outside.

 AI don’t need no bar fight in here tonight,@ the hefty man said.

 AOh, we’re not fighting,@ Hank said.

 AWell, take it outside anyway. We don’t need no cops coming in here tonight.@

 Hank pulled Kenny out to the curb, and started to shout.

 AThis is crazy!@ he said. AI didn’t drive all the way up here to have you pull this shit on me. Leaving me at a go-go bar is one thing, but walking out when I’ve found us two willing babes is a whole different matter. I don’t intend to let you screw this up for us, Kenny.@

 Hank’s shouting echoed off the sides of the stone buildings around them, and drew the attention of passersby out here, too, one of which was a beat cop making his rounds, a cop that paused a dozen feet from them and asked if there was trouble.

 ATrouble, officer?@ Hank laughed, shifting his mask into something less than a convincing expression, trying to look non-pulsed while his outrage showed. ANot at all. We’re just trying to figure out which bar to go to.@

 AWell, pick one,@ the cop said. AThis town doesn’t need you shouting in the street.@

 ANo problem, officer,@ Hank tells the cop, though makes no move into the bar, in fact, his shoulders suddenly slump as he notices his two women talking to two very handsome jock-type men.

 ADamn you,@ he growls at Kenny and grabs his arm, marching back along the sidewalk towards the car. AWe had it made with those girls. They were aching to fuck us. And you blew it.@

 AI didn’t blow anything,@ Kenny snapped back as they walked, the streets now nearly empty, though all the bars bulged with men and women on the make, a society of sex that Kenny could not find connection. This was not love. This was not anything. Just a one-stop supermarket for sex, just as Greenwood Lake had been, just as the go-go bars to which Hank went were. And being here, associating with these places made Kenny feel unclean.

 ADon’t give me that,@ Hank said, when they’d reached the car again. AYou’ve been in this mood for more than a year, complaining about how you’re not ready for love, walking out on me in places because I’m normal and I want to get a girl even if you don’t.@

 AWell, you don’t have to associate with me,@ Kenny complained. AYou come around. You ask me to go out. All the time you know how I feel about things.@

 AI know how you feel and I think it’s abnormal,@ Hank growled. AI keep hoping one of these times you’re going to change your mind.@

 AWell, this isn’t the time,@ Kenny said.

 AFine! Then we might as well go home, because I’m not going to pick up any more girls so you can chase them away.@

 AStop blaming me, Hank. Or you can ride home by yourself.@

 AGet in the car, Kenny,@ Hank said.

 ANo,@ Kenny said. AI won’t.@

 AYou’re acting crazy again. Get in the car.@

 AI told you, Hank, I won’t. Just leave me the hell alone.

 AFine, I will,@ Hank growled, unlocked his door, climbed into the car, started it, and then took off.

 Kenny watched as the tail lights faded, his anger evaporating almost the moment the car vanished. Then, standing shivering in the cold, he felt a little foolish. This wasn’t Bloomfield or Newark. He wasn’t within walking distance or a short bus ride of home.

 AWhat the hell do I do now?@ he wondered, and then shivered again, and started to walk, half expecting to see Hank’s Dodge coming back. A few headlights appeared, but proved only pickup trucks when they passed.

 AI need some place warm,@ he thought, yet when he looked into the bars, he saw the same plastic faces there, and heard the same artificial talk seeping out under the doors with the scent of alcohol and the sound of music, miserable, depressing talk he couldn’t stand to hear, each man looking and sounding exactly the way Hank had, as if modeled after each other, thinking this was the only way they could attract a female, each blustering up his chest the way the pigeons did in the park, chasing women around the bar until one wearied of pursuit and agreed to go out to the car.

 AI guess I should find a diner,@ he thought and moved on, wandering up one street then down another, finding only more bars like the ones he and Hank had just left. He wandered into the residential neighborhood, where a cop car slowed down to observe him, and alarmed by this, Kenny turned back, haunting the streets nearer to the center of town, until one by one the bars began to close and the men left women under their arms, pickup trucks and four wheel drive jeeps rumbling away in a parade of sexual victory.

 AWhy is it so damned cold?@ he wondered, and tried increasing his pace to keep warm, but found this did not warm him, yet the cold was only part of his misery. People seemed to avoid him, even on the street, stepping out of his way when he came upon them, and the colder he got and the lonelier he became, the more he curse Hank for going, cursed Hank for not being sensitive enough to see why Kenny didn’t want to chase girls tonight, why he hadn’t recovered from Louise’s leaving even after a year.

 Couldn’t Hank see how little Kenny fit in with all this bar glitz, how much Kenny had hoped to find something special here, some small treasure of the past he could used to relive that era of innocent singing. Middletown was only a few miles from Saugety, from where 500,000 music hungry people had come to witness Woodstock, among whom Hank had been one. Kenny had only flown over the site, missing the music for the sound of the helicopter engine, failing to see the people because of his fright of heights. Now, he craved that way of life, knowing that something fundamental had changed, something he could not bring back, something he would miss until the day he died.

 Yes the newspapers still mentioned Vietnam from time to time, but no one protested it, and the big event of the day were the Watergate hearings on TV, grey faces growing greyer day by day as they sought to burn Richard Nixon as a witch, but really helping to bury everything Kenny considered good about his generation. And standing here, amid the last of the leaving college kids, he heard not the echo of protest, but of laughter, the high pitched squeal of people who ceased caring about anyone or anything but themselves.

 Shivering, Kenny found a deep store front doorway where he could huddle for a moment and light his cigarette out of the wind. He could not shake thoughts of Louise, and New York, and L.A. and all the miles between the two that they had wandered together, pretending to be a vital part of the scene, while around them the sixties faded, leaving their lives meaningless -- except for their child. He missed both mother and child now, and regretted those months when he had flatly refused to even look for a job.

 AYou want me to work?@ he’d asked.

 AWe have a baby now, Kenny, you can’t go on acting like a damned fool all your life.@

 ASo I’m a fool now, am I?@

 AYou’re acting like one. Or at least, like all those crazy people you call friends. None of you seem to want to ever grow up.@

 AIt’s not a matter of growing up,@ Kenny argued. AWe just don’t want to sell out.@

 ASo in the meantime, what do you do, starve?@

 Her question made more sense now, a year after her leaving, somewhere over those 12 months he had come to understand himself a little better, and the basic pride men felt when bringing home a pay check. Perhaps it was slavery -- with rent, taxes and utilities demanding payment every month, despite his desire to drop out, tune in and turn on.

 God! He could remember the last time he smoked pot, and the few beers he had when with Hank, didn’t even get him high any more, only weary. He was weary now, and sucked on his cigarette, cupping his hand around its tip for warmth. Maybe if he could stay here until morning, pacing back and forth, he might catch a bus into New York City, and then a bus from there to home. All he had to do was last out the night, and yet, as late as it was, it seemed forever, with nothing more than more loneliness waiting for him when he finally did arrive home.

 ADamn that Hank,@ he thought and crushed the cigarette under his heal. AWhy couldn’t he just sit with me and talk? Why did he insist on trying to pick up girls each and every time he went out?@

 AHello?@ a soft voice said from the mouth of the doorway, and Kenny glancing up, saw a young woman staring in at him from the street. ACould you do me a favor?@

 Kenny actually glanced over his shoulder deeper into the doorway, half expecting to find someone behind him to whom she was actually talking. And when he realized she was talking to him, he felt his face grow warm.

 AA favor?@ he said. AWhat kind of favor?@

 AThere’s a guy following me,@ she said. AI work as a barmaid over at the Lazy Susan. I saw you and your friend there earlier. You both seemed like nice guys. I was just wondering if you would walk down the street with me for a bit, just so this jerk thinks I’m with someone.@

 AI guess I can do that,@ Kenny mumbled.

 AIt isn’t far. I’m just staying at the motel down the street until I can get myself an apartment. You from around here?@

 AAfraid not,@ Kenny said, stepping out of the doorway, her arm slipping under his.

 Down the street, a grey shape slipped out from one doorway and into another, peering around the edge of the door sill to watch the girl and Kenny.

 AThat’s a shame,@ the girl said and smiled, one of the weak and wearily smiles that seemed to reflect how Kenny felt. AI could sure use company tonight.@

 AWhere are you from?@ Kenny asked, detecting a slight accent, though nothing so distinct that he could identify it with a region.

 AIowa,@ she said.

 AYou’ve come a long way just for a job,@ Kenny said, starting to walk with her, their step slow and steady.

 AI didn’t come east for a job. I came to get married. But the son of a bitch I was writing to for three years proved to be a jerk. He was married the whole time and just pulling my leg with his talk of love.@

 AI’m sorry to hear that,@ Kenny said.

 She looked at him, studied his face. AI think you mean that.@

 AI do. I’m just getting over a bad romance myself.@

 AAh,@ the girl sighed. AThat explains it.@

 AExplains what?@

 AWhy you weren’t hitting on women in the bar the way your friend was.@

 AIt’s my birthday,@ Kenny said. AI just didn’t want to spend my birthday lying to get laid.@

 AToday’s your birthday?@

 AWell, not now, I suppose,@ Kenny laughed. AIt’s after midnight.@

 AYeah, way after,@ the girl said, and then seemed to lose interest.

 Under a street lamp, Kenny had a chance to look at her face better. Thick layers of makeup ruined her face. She looked like a bad copy of the plastic people she served drinks to in the bar, something like the cheap molded toy soldiers Kenny had as a kid, the features melting into each other, blurred into an incomprehensible mask.

 So intent was Kenny in studying the girl, he hardly noticed the cop car when he slowed down, the driver studying them as it passed. For a moment, Kenny stiffened, and then relaxed, realizing that nothing could be more normal than a boy and girl walking home arm and arm together after the clubs had closed.

 The police had many other more suspicious people to divert their attention, the sad characters who stumbled home, victims of their own campaign, scoring with no one and doubly lonely for the effort, the way Hank was lonely on his long ride home, the way Kenny was lonely when he sat up in bed at night and heard the sirens outside, and no one’s breathing in the bed beside him.

 AWell,@ the girl said after another block. AThis is it.@

 Kenny glanced at the small motel sign that distinguished the house like building, which otherwise would have looked like a house.

 AI suppose it is,@ Kenny said.

 ALook, I’d invite you in,@ the girl said, clutching his arm. ABut I don’t know you, and I’m sort of still a little burned. If you know what I mean.@

 AI know what you mean.@

 AMaybe the next time you’re up here, we can have a drink together. All right?@

 ASure, the next time I’m around.@

 Her smile cracked her makeup and she fled into the building as if he was the stalker and not the grey shape still lingering in a doorway a half block away.

 When she was gone, Kenny shivered, hugged his thin coat closed around him and headed back the way he’d come, stopping, however, at the first deep door way where he could huddle in the back, light a cigarette and hope to stay warm.

 AMay,@ he thought for the hundredth time that night. AAnd I do believe it’s getting colder. If the temperature drops much more, it might snow.@

 But the temperature did drop and the doorway did little but keep the wind from him, His teeth chattered the way they had in the school yard as a kid, that mysterious sense of frigidity he’d not sensed since before puberty, striking him as all wrong now that he was nearly an adult. His chest tightened and the tickle at the back of his throat made him cough and cough again, each making his throat feel worse.

 AI need a cup of coffee,@ he thought, trying to recall seeing a 24 hour diner on his way into town with Hank, knowing that he can huddle there for an hour or two, at least long enough to take the chill off.

 So he eased back out onto the now barren street, all the activity of the previous hours now dribbled off into silence. No drunks staggered along the curb. No dirty old men hid in the door ways. No young women hurried home. This was the part of the night Kenny always hated, from even his time on the road, the hours when the world seemed to stop and he, the lone human left on the planet, seeking truth and purpose among the ruins, finding that the colors he had praised so much during his drug days had drained out of everything so that street and houses looked grey and sad. The only movement outside the echo of his steps came from the stray cats and dogs which popped out of from the few front yards, their eyes glinting with surprise to find him there among them. They stared at him, then flee. He regrets losing their company, as if they couldn’t stand to be around him any more than Hank could, screeching with their own sexual satisfaction from the back yard and front yards as if sex and hunger were the only two important elements in this process of evolution, each struggling to maintain itself and its kind.

 AAm I that strange?@ Kenny wondered. AWhy don’t I want to seek out anybody, get married and settle down? What is wrong with me anyway?@

 Kenny missed the male collectivity he had enjoyed at school, buddies doing crazy things, thinking crazy thoughts. He missed Hank and wondered if he should find a phone and call the man, just to apologize, not just for arguing with Hank over the girls at the bar, but for Kenny’s refusal to change with the times, to adapt the new habits and new values that the 1970s demanded, shedding the pointless protests and futile hopes with which he had garbed himself during the previous decade. He needed to apologize to Hank and the world for not turning Republican, for refusing to vote for Richard Nixon, for not insisting on corporate greed as a means to salvation. Everything about the beads and the bellbottoms seemed foolish now. Woodstock? What was that? Just a farm in a place that was called Bethel -- the Hebrew name for AGod’s House.@

 After blocks of walking, Kenny decided that Middletown was hardly better than the villages through which he and Hank sometimes traveled, villages that rolled up their sidewalks at night, with no business open for truck drivers or wandering hippies, not coffee to ease the pain of time or unnatural cold.

 AMy fingers are going numb,@ he thought. AIf I don’t find someplace warm, I’ll catch frost bite. But where do I go? I can’t very well walk up to someone’s house, pound on the door and demand they let me in.@

 He tried to hard to think of someplace that would be open, even in a small town, some place the town fathers could not afford to keep closed. Then, in a moment of desperation, he thought: AThe police station, of course!@

 Doubt crossed his mind. He was in technical violation of his probation. A judge could send him to jail, and yet, even jail seemed more appealing than wandering the naked streets. Jail would be warm. The police would have coffee. And he had taken notice of the police station during his walk, heading straight across the town square towards the squat grey building on the other side, climbing the stone steps, passing the stone pillars, pounding on the steel door, the echo of his fist sounding just as hollow inside the building as out.

 No one answered.

 AThis is crazy!@ he thought. ASomeone has to be here.@

 Yet pound as he did, he could attract no attention.

 AI can’t even turn myself in,@ he thought, and then -- staggered away, feeling more drunk on cold and weariness than he would have had he gone beer for beer with Hank all night, the same kind of haze falling over his eyes as he walked so that he didn’t even see which way he went then, but found himself a while later, above the downtown section, on some sort of a hill, in some sort of small park -- a bench facing out inviting him to sit, and he sat. The haze faded from his eyes. The sleepy town seemed less dark to him now, and the sky less black. He had to stare for a few moments east to notice the subtle changes of shade, growing greyer, then bluer, and then with the rising sun, a red so bright his eyes stung. Somewhere below bells began to chime, low, dull but growing louder as the sound spread from church to church.

 Sunday morning!

 Kenny teeth ceased their chattering as the sun warmed his face. He nodded, then woke, stared down at the movement in the town below, first a truck, then a station wagon, then more cars, and more people, with small circles of people spreading out around the steps of each church. Hours had passed, but Kenny hardly noticed, only now finding strength again to stand, his limbs so stiff the joints give off a popping sound as he attempted his first step. Slowly, he made his way back down the hill, remembering nothing about how he’d come up, guessing which street led him back to the center of town.

 The glitter vanished with the bar lights. Middletown has taken on that stony small town feeling again, the kind which Kenny used to hunger for when watching 1930 films about life on campus, where every boy wore button down shirts and sports sweaters, and every girl wore pleated skirts, and the older generation rode with a kind dignified solidarity from church to bakery and then to home. Some of these people nodded and smiled at Kenny, as if the change of day had changed the population, gone were the nasty night games played in the bars, gone were the wicked intentions. Kenny could spend his life in a place like this, living from dawn to dusk, only to dread the night. Even the police officers nod at him, acting now as crossing guards, not Gestapo.  Their Norman Rockwell faces taken straight from the covers of the Saturday Evening Post, all red-cheeked and grinning, they seemed unreal.

 Kenny hurried on, heading for the bus station he had passed during his wanderings the night before, a station that closed at dusk with the rest of the legitimate businesses here, as if part of some vast plot to keep anyone here who didn’t escape by sundown. In the station, Kenny dug out some wrinkled bills, took his ticket, then sat on the bench to wait for the bus that would take him home.

 

 

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